


Endless Dream

by wavehitshore



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, fa - Fandom
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship/Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24624832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavehitshore/pseuds/wavehitshore
Summary: Gellert Grindelwald dealt with his loss.
Relationships: Ariana Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Endless Dream

Death is vague and general.   
It is a transformation between bodies and spirits. At least for Grindelwald, it is so.

He was there too, when Ariana was buried, standing far away. He heard Aberforth crying like a child unwilling to reconcile with reality, and he stared at the back of Albus, whose body was tall and slim, like a withered tree in winter that stretches high toward the sunless sky; its miserable silhouette was narrow, long, and sharp which cut through the few remaining hope inside him and left only endless despair.   
It was not the future he had foreseen. Nevertheless, after all that had happened, the future that failed to become the reality was left inside ethereal dreams. He still dreamed of her, calling her Cosmopoetian. My Cosmopoetian. Her hair scattered under the sunlight; her caramel eyelashes fluttered gently; her freckles tenderly laid on her youthful cheeks, like sunlight sprinkling across her face.

As they reached each other for an embrace, he crushed the porcelain doll named Cosmopoetian. Her face was shattered into countless splinters; her arms fell onto the floor and turned to shreds. She fell into his embrace; heartbeats crumbled into bubbles.  
After that… there was nothing after that. He woke up from the dream. Alone is Grindelwald, inside his fantasy. He would wake up in suffocation. Sometimes he chokes himself, as if he’s trying to grasp life by driving himself to the edge of death. For Grindelwald, life is not the end, he merely chooses to die at the appropriate moment.  
The sunlight of dawn is the magic of a phantasm. The daybreak in reality is always as dark as in a dream. Grindelwald can feel his feet stepping onto a carpet, his body moving automatically, walking into the bathroom. As he’s freshening up, he could feel all his movements are nothing but unconscious reflections.

He stares into himself in the mirror. The Grindelwald gazes back and blinks with the same frequency. Their appearances are utterly the same and they loathe themselves with an equal amount. Grindelwald frowns at himself. Anytime, he could shatter the mirror, break himself into thousands of pieces. To do or not to do, all rely on his temper. No melancholy dwells in his gaze. As the focus of his eyes dwindles, his head divides into two, then four, or even more—two heads now stand upon his shoulder, looking around with insouciance. Two Grindelwald, four azure iris, turning left and right simultaneously; the grey clinging to the tip of his hair glimmers under the faint luminescence. He gradually blinks and falls into the stream running beneath those eyes. Lights reflect from within, covering his mortal flesh, and colour dawn into azure blue. They shine back and pierce through Grindelwald, through him and him and him. The mortal flesh that carries two heads split into two. Numerous gazes come across each other. He reaches out but could not reach one another. Grindelwald is the prisoner of lights, imprisoned by himself, incapable to catch a breath. His ultimate prison is himself.

Grindelwald stretches his arm for the cabinet door and carelessly snatches bottles of glass jars containing medicines. Opening the lid, pieces of condensed tablets with eccentric colours fall from the jars. Without further consideration and counting the number, Grindelwald forces those pills down his throat after filling his hands with freezing tap water. He splashes cold water on his face, letting it batter against his cheekbones, as if lacking strength, his skin and flesh would melt till there’s nothing left but skeletons. Grindelwald raises his head. Droplets of water tumble down from between his eyelashes, it was frozen tears that plunge along the contour of his face. He is alone now. Grindelwald looks deep into the mirror; his focus stops splitting; and his body returns to one. The condensed tablets do no merit nor harm toward the body. Nevertheless, the burning sensation of desire that sometimes blazes deep within prevents him from suffocating in being lost.

Grindelwald, barehanded, rips apart a multigrain bread, puts it inside his mouth, swallows it. He finds it hard to swallow the dry bread, and it nearly caused suffocation. Grindelwald reaches out his finger to wipe off the remaining bread crumbs on the porcelain plate, leaving no scraps. He gazes at his reflection on the surface of the plate. In the reversed world the left of heterochromia eyes becomes his right. The other him, barely visible, conceals himself between the shadows of lights. Yet Grindelwald can clearly observe that the other one smirks behind the reflection. As if the reflection has its own consciousness, soul, even life—  
CLANK!

Grindelwald picks up the porcelain plate and smashes it onto his face. Fragments of porcelain cut open the end of his eyebrow. Blood pours from the wound. It is tears of the rain, cold and melancholic. Grindelwald wipes off the tiny splinters on his cheeks. Petite pieces of sharpened edges slice through his cheekbones, and give birth to crimson flowers, so long and narrow. He grabs the triangle fragment on the floor. The reflection on the surface of the white porcelain is Grindelwald no more, but the corner of Ariana’s eyes, which is gentle, delicate, lingering with matureness. It is his Ariana, but she is not his Ariana. His Ariana lived inside an intricate flesh. Trapped, abandoned by time, capable of going nowhere…

Grindelwald heard the sound of broken plates. He turned and walked toward the kitchen. Ariana huddled by the corner of the counters. Her long hair stretched across her hunched back. Grindelwald took a glance at the broken plates scattering across the floor, then he turned to Ariana. He touched her, from the end of her shivering hair, up across the red yet hazel stream of hair, to the whirling centre of the hair. Gently, Grindelwald took Ariana into his embrace, he kissed her hair, while his other hand swung the magic wand in silence behind her. Without a noise the broken plates were repaired; without a noise, they returned to the plate rack.

“These are all but dreams.” Grindelwald’s lips clang onto Ariana’s ear and whispered. “When you are asleep, you will be awakened from dreams.”   
Through his lips, he imprinted his heat onto Ariana’s ear, the side of her face, and those crimson lips. Ariana’s upper lip met with his, four lips mounted onto each other; so close to each other, as if the world belonged only to them. Grindelwald glanced down at her; the girl in front of him was so dainty—her eyes were closed, to escape from consternation; her freckles scattered sparsely on her nose and cheeks. The flower that belonged to Ariana had yet fully bloomed; it was a flower bud waiting for blossoming, to be embosomed under the golden warmth. Grindelwald delicately held up her precious, exquisite life. They leaned against each other and raised the world. Slowly Ariana stopped weeping; her breath turned steady and deep. In the company of the sound of heartbeats, she fell into the bosom of dreams.

Dumbledore was carrying a paper bag of groceries when he trod into the kitchen lightly. They looked at each other; when those pairs of blue iris met, no words needed to be uttered. Dazed, Dumbledore carelessly put the bag on the table, walked toward Grindelwald in big steps, and took Ariana’s soft body in one hand. He whispered appreciation to his dear friend.   
“I will take her to her room.” He said, avoiding to meet Grindelwald’s gaze.

Naturally, Grindelwald understood what he was trying to say. He turned and walked out of the house through the narrow back door. Waiting for Dumbledore by the tiny garden with a cigarette in hand. Squeezing through the narrow gap of the back door came Dumbledore. Grindelwald tried to hand him the cigarette but was turned down.   
Breathing out the smoke he said, “It is time for the white rose to bloom.”  
Finally, Dumbledore was able to see his face clearly; without hesitation, he threw a punch on the side of Grindelwald’s face.

Unable to react to the strong hit, Grindelwald fell onto the ground. The garden was soaked with rain; the soil was cool; grass clang onto his nose.   
“Do not hurt her.” His lips trembled, Dumbledore’s hands shivered with more intensity. “If you love her. Stay away from her.” Dumbledore spoke with a quivering voice.  
Gloomy rain once again started falling from the sky; muffled thunder growled inside its darkness. Lightning was the first to cut through this colourless curtain.

“Please…” Being submerged in the freezing rain stood Dumbledore.  
In Grindelwald’s eyes, his friable figure transformed into misty memories. His tears were cold, they flowed into his eyes and overflowed; they were not his tears; this love did not belong to him. His only belonging was the taste of blood that came from his nose and lips; the blood that rendered the line between fantasy and reality.

Grindelwald swings the wand and mumbles, “Reparo.”  
The broken porcelain returns to its entirety. Ariana is gone, leaving him, Gellert Grindelwald, all by himself. The eye with heterochromia transformed into a cold dagger and pierces into his chest, cut into his body with precision. A pain without a name rips his chest apart. He takes his hand to pull out the dagger and breaks the porcelain plates once more. The sound of his rapid breath resonates within the room. Grindelwald holds tightly on the wand and whispers to the plates, “Reparo.” The fragments piece back to its original form. On the plate, once again Ariana enters Grindelwald’s sight. He opens his arms and takes her to his embrace, buries her with a deep kiss. The rain from reality pours through his memories, then falls along Grindelwald’s cheeks. How gentle, how broken, are the man and woman kissing in the rain of blood. The vision inspires desire inside Grindelwald. It was a day without rain. In order to hide from her brothers, the Dumbledores, Ariana hid beneath Grindelwald’s black robe, and was smuggled out of the Godric’s Hollow. When they were out, Ariana squatted in the small alley; she was puking because of the discomfort brought by Apprate. Grindelwald lowered his gaze at this girl from Dumbledores: her figure seemed so small as she squatted beside his feet. He lowered himself to the same height, reached out his hand to Ariana to brush away her hair, and wipe off the stains on her lips with a napkin. “Come on.” He said to her. He pressed his finger in the centre of her palm, to feel her body heat, which was warm like a winter sun.

Grindelwald has been to many twisted alleys with Albus in England, but he rarely visits Diagon alley. There are too many people here; the presence of others only suffocates him. With a simple glance he soon understood that Ariana had been suffering from the same condition, that her soul was maltreated by the clamour of secular sites. A mere gaze from her kind could turn into her prison; the only place she belonged was within her own shadow.  
  
The flower shop is located in the corner of the alley. Sunlight slit in between the alleys and poured down into the greenhouse from the glass dome. The sun in England is always cold and distant, with no warm affection, so are the people. Ariana laid in the bosom of hydrangeas. Grindelwald goes into the shop, throws a glance at the shop owner, and goes on his own to pick on some white roses. It is not the season of white roses, the owner murmurs, wielding the magic wand in his hand and taking off the spikes on the roses.   
“There’s no need.” Grindelwald stopped him by pressing his hand on the tip of the wand.  
Sparks of magic bursts from the tip of his finger and splashes across his elbow. His pale skin was slit open, and the blood flowed from it like the cotton overflowed from the crack of a broken plush doll. The wound seems effortless and careless, causes no pain at all.

In the owner’s eyes, Grindelwald becomes a woman.   
“Madame, your flower.”   
The owner bows and offers the bouquet of white roses with both hands. His gaze falls on the ground, buried between the shadow. Grindelwald cannot figure out the owner’s expression, nor can he not confirm his appearance from the owner’s eyes. Grindelwald has disguised himself into an arrogant woman, acting as if she has blessed this place with her presence. When she finally leaves the shop, she doesn’t even care to express any appreciation. Nevertheless, magic is merely magic; in the end he is still Grindelwald. Even if he spends a while staring at the reflection on the shop windows, the woman in the reflection is nothing but an empty shell which is fragile and vain like himself, Gellert Grindelwald. The woman in the shop window has a head of long and wavy golden hair. Tears dribble from beneath the brim of her dark tall hat. Her only company is the bouquet of roses, calm and peaceful. It resembles the heat he received when he put his finger in the heart of Ariana’s palm. The tears and melancholy do not represent the love for the dead, but the fact that he cannot buy her the flower in his original form.

It is late autumn now, and the night has begun to fall, casting a shadow on the sunlight within Grindelwald’s eyes. Stars rise in the night sky. Sun falls gradually, dragging its dying breath. The bloody orange light blossoms and then is smothered petal by petal in the inky night. Lights flutter on his eyelashes; they shiver with the inability to become the twinkling lights of moon and stars, or to set fire to the world, eventually they are devoured by the night, falling into nothingness without a sound and a chance to shine.   
The magic of transformation stings him like the white rose that penetrated Ariana that day.   
“If magic be the stings, you are the rose.” He said to her then, and wiped her blood with his finger, putting it into his mouth. “Without stings, roses are just wildflowers by the road.”

Standing in front of Ariana’s grave, Grindelwald takes off the façade of magic, and feels like he’s able to breathe once more. He puts the flowers on the grave as if he is stuffing this large bouquet of white roses into her delicate arms. Along with the green stems, the white roses buried her. She was supposed to bloom under the sunlight, but instead she faded away in the long night before the dawn. She’s asleep now. Her heartbeats were stolen by the night. Ariana descended into the earth, like she was trapped inside the quick sand and pulled beneath the earth, with such tenderness and elegance. She’s merely asleep. Bending down, half kneeling, Grindelwald stares at her. A bud of daisy bows in the midst of grasses beside the grave, sleeping soundly. It missed its chance to bloom during spring and forgot to wake up in midsummer; perhaps it had decided to fall in the hand of death in the form of a bud a long time ago. Flower is still a flower, albeit without blooming. Her ghost appears behind him, clinging by his side and whispering into his ears. Ariana gently rubs Grindelwald’s shoulders; then she lowers her hands downwards, slips into his chest, and punctures his heart with a piece of icicle. The frozen pain slits through the crack in his heart and leaves stains on the memories he long abandoned.

Winter left an icy crystal on the spine of Durmstrang; the crystal departed itself from the icicle, falling, till it hit the ground and splintered. Grindelwald leaned forward, observed and found out that what was broken was not the icy crystal, but a living heart. Through the freezing weather, the broken heart reflected his scattered face. The cold wind tore up the years that had piled up on him. Grindelwald squinted, he was back in the uniform again; the animal odour that lingered in the cellar flooded into his nasal once more…... That wall, he pulled out the wand and carved the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on the wall. Suddenly the wall shattered and presented him with Ariana’s countenance, which shrieked at him like a banshee trying to tear his flesh apart, as if she was bewitched. Grindelwald didn’t fall onto his knees, he merely stood in idleness, knowing what he saw was not what he saw; it was the fear inside him spreading like the dark ink in water.   
“This is not the future I want for you.” He said to her and put his wand away.  
Without resistance, he threw himself down in the bottomless ocean.

Twilight broke the darkness in the bottom of the ocean. Layers by layers, it was the colour of the clouds, begrimed by the smothered thunder. As Grindelwald swiftly swung the wand in his hand, the streetlights were turned on. Gently the glimmers kissed his eyelids; they praised the magic and praised Grindelwald. From within the house, Dumbledore exchanged gaze with him through the window. His blue eyes gleamed inside the gathering darkness. From Grindelwald’s perspective, as the thunder growled behind groups of clouds, Dumbledore’s eyes transformed into phoenix, which blazed the world with its myriad flame. Grindelwald rested himself against the streetlight, and stood watching Dumbledore disappeared from Ariana’s window, opened the gate and walked straight toward Grindelwald. Lightning appeared beneath the dark clouds, dividing the sky into two.  
  
“You could kill her!”   
Clouds streaked across the sky as thunder and lightning overlapped each other. A flash of lightning fell upon them and lightened up the eyes of Grindelwald and Dumbledore. Drizzle trickled down from the heavy clouds and fell on the edge of Grindelwald’s cheeks. He shivered. Dumbledore held on tight to the wand in his hand; bits of white sparkles oozed from the tip of the wand. Grindelwald fell into the glittering light inside Dumbledore’s eyes; the gleaming ocean in his eyes penetrated Grindelwald. An opaque figure reached and took his hand. Grindelwald plunged himself into the ocean and merged with that vague shadowy figure, or devoured by it. Tiny raindrops fell onto his nose bridge. Grindelwald blinked, and felt the tide pulling away, as if he had just woken up from a dream. He could see Dumbledore’s expression—fury, pain, sorrow, and more struggle. 

“Rose should keep its thorn.” He said.  
The gloomy dusk consumed the light on Dumbledore’s countenance. Rain and tears dripped down to his jaw. He grabbed onto Grindelwald’s collar band with one hand, “Magic is not all powerful.”  
The dreary rain left a stain on the purity of tears, and turned it into the colour of melancholy, which was as misty as a phantom.   
“But only magic conquers all.” Grindelwald lowered his eyes. The golden eyelashes of his blurred his sight. With little effort he escaped Dumbledore’s restraint by a simple gaze. “Albus,” He whispered into his ears, calling his name, “Magic made us.”  
He lowered his head and pressed onto his lips. One was soft, one was damp, both shivered. Time froze in the cold rain.

Above Grindelwald’s eyelashes, youth turned into whiteness. Drift sand creeps beneath him like a snake crawling. It cuts off his flesh and bones bits by bits, moments by moments, like a withering rose falling petals by petals. He had predicted himself to stand on the top of the world of magic, receiving reverence and fear at the same time, standing in solitary on the soaring peak. Albus was not there to accompany him. Magic brought them together yet apart. The beautiful memories had become miserable; the sweetness from the past had turned foul. All the love and pain intertwined with each other to form a lingering shadow—When he opens his eyes every morning, he feels like he has swallowed a bowl of poison.

Treading softly and silently, a thestral comes to his side. He stares down at the ground, with a bouquet of white roses in hand. The bouquet of roses, with tenderness, falls into slumber along with Ariana’s life. Eventually, they all grow old, they all dwindle. Petals of flowers spread their freshness in the air and fade away along the wind. As if that Ariana’s flesh had returned to earth—— her spirit had turned into starlight to burn until eternity.

Albus stands on the neatly trimmed grass. The thestral extends its wings and glides downward. When its bone like hoof touches the ground, the air swirls around them and reaches for the starry sky. Albus keeps his gaze at the stars and sees the white star that belonged to Ariana burns in the dark sky. It is like an ocean spreading its arms, letting lives travel in between; it is even more fantastical than a magic ceiling. Starlight glitters white glimmer on Albus’ beard. Grindelwald climbs down from the thestral, stands next to Abus to gaze at the sky by his side. The thestral shakes its head before stretches out his wings and returns to the night, and travels to the infinite beyond; its dark figure transforms into shooting stars in their eyes.  
  
“It’s all over now.”

Grindelwald’s heterochromia eye reflects the starlight; tears flow across his cheek and turn into countless falling stars. It is now he suddenly realises how much time has passed. The gentle breeze of night brushes against him, like the Thief’s Downfall inside the Gringotts bank that washes away all sorts of magic. Youth melted away on his cheek. All the bliss and sorrow fade away like shooting stars in front of Grindelwald. All the brilliant, the vibrant, the radiant have plummeted—the recklessness of their youth, the owl letters that carried courage and absurdity, the future that was brighter than Lumos…... the dream they never achieved, the dream he never wakes up from.

“It’s all over now.”

Grindelwald repeats with his hoarse voice; tears flood from his eyes. They remind him of the warm and moist kiss from Ariana. Albus reaches out and takes his hand. 

“Your journey continues, Gellert.” Their aged fingers and palms brush against each other. “You and I both.” He whispered.  
  
A lone star burns in the borderless night sky and brightens the night with its light.

**Author's Note:**

> This is written by Farinelli in Chinese and translated by me the humble translator.
> 
> You can visit her website here if you are interested in her work:  
> https://dracula12047.wixsite.com/fanficbyf
> 
> Please note that:  
> 1\. The original text has not yet been posted onto the website above.  
> 2\. Unlike Farinelli, I don't have much knowledge regarding the HP fandom, please let me know if I got anything wrong. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
